Accident at a Braskem boiler at the Petrochemical Complex causes serious injuries to a worker

Within a few days, two accidents were recorded at Braskem Q2, at the Triunfo Petrochemical Complex. On April 14, a fire accident occurred outside a boiler belonging to Braskem. A problem with one of the boiler’s injection nozzles, which burns oil, ended up damaging some equipment and causing a medium-sized fire on the outside of the boiler. Less than a week later, last Saturday (20), another accident was recorded and, in a way, as a result of the first. The second, however, caused serious injuries to a worker.

Saturday’s accident occurred in the same boiler as the previous one and which has been undergoing maintenance since then. Braskem has three large boilers at the Triunfo Petrochemical Complex: one is undergoing scheduled maintenance, another was damaged by the fire on the 14th and only the third was in full operation, but still insufficient to maintain the production levels of petrochemical products at the Triunfo Complex. Pole.

For the Triunfo RS Petrochemical Complex Workers Union (Sindipolo), the company is only concerned with resuming production, without “due care for the lives and health of workers”. The entity assesses that the fire on April 14th is related to the reduction in teams and work overload.

“We attribute part of this fire to the extremely small teams, the number of workers was greatly reduced. Today we work with the bare minimum, often working a lot of overtime and also excessive working hours”, assesses Ivonei Arnt, president of Sindipolo.

“One boiler is not enough, that is, they had to reduce the load on the plants, some stopped completely, others reduced the load. So, since the accident on the 14th, there was a lot of pressure to restore the operating conditions of the boiler where the accident occurred”, he states, complaining about the charge to put the damaged boiler back into operation as soon as possible.

During this process, during the hydrostatic test, a mandatory procedure after any type of repair, the second accident occurred. To speed up the test, Arnt says that Braskem used a pump model that is not suitable for the hydrostatic test. It was then that the new accident happened.

“It turns out that, at the beginning of the test, the pump stopped for another reason, which is the lack of water supply, the alignment that was being made was blocked and which is a condition for carrying out the test. With the alignment fault, the worker at the Petrochemical Complex went to open the valve that was blocked and, then, the manometer (a device that indicates pressure) exploded and hit the employee in the face”, explains the president of Sindipolo.

The worker was seriously injured, underwent surgery, spent a few days in the ICU at Hospital Moinhos de Vento, in Porto Alegre, and remains hospitalized, but without risk of death.

The president of Sindipolo highlights that the entity had already observed during the last week that, after the fire accident in the boiler, the company extended working hours to put the equipment back into operation, accelerating its maintenance.

“There are cases of workers working more than 10 hours a day, with pressure to get the boilers back into operation, which is physically and mentally exhausting work and, probably, this has contributed to this new serious accident”, pointed out the director.

Inspectors from the Regional Superintendence of Labor and Employment/Ministry of Labor (SRTE-RS) inspected the Petrochemical Complex on Monday (22) and, the following day, monitored the beginning of the investigation of the case by the Internal Accident Prevention Commission (Cipa ) from Braskem. Also on Monday, the Ministry of Labor issued a notice banning any new hydrostatic tests on the boiler.

Now, in order to carry out a new hydrostatic test and, thus, resume operation of the boiler, Braskem needs to comply with a series of technical requirements established by the Regional Labor and Employment Superintendency.

“There is a lot of pressure for this test to take place, but for this to happen the company has to present a new procedure, a new method with other equipment, it has to change that pump, which is now prohibited from being used”, explains Ivonei Arnt . “It is unacceptable that sad situations like this continue to occur within a petrochemical plant, a high-risk work environment, where the issue of safety should be an absolute priority, and it is not. We are monitoring these accidents, despite the difficulties imposed by the company in relation to information and we will seek measures to ensure that the safety of workers in the work environment, which can reflect on the community, is effectively ensured”, added Arnt.

In a statement, Braskem reported that the “operational disturbance” in one of its boilers located at the Triunfo Petrochemical Complex, on April 14, was caused by an oil leak in one of the boiler’s burners. According to the company, the teams acted promptly to stop the boiler’s operation, without there being “risks to people or the environment”.

Regarding the accident last Saturday (20), Braskem explains that the episode occurred during the inspection of equipment undergoing maintenance, when a member suffered an injury “caused by the projection of a part”. The company highlights that the worker was immediately treated and taken to the reference hospital. His health condition is stable. “At the moment, we are focused on serving members and their families. The causes of the accident are being investigated and the maintenance work where the accident occurred has been suspended”, informs the company.